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Batter Pudding, Baked
Separate the yolks from the whites of four eggs, beat them well separately, and throw them in a basin together; then mix them very gradually with six or eight ounces of flour, and a pinch or two of salt. Make the batter of the proper consistency by adding little more than a pint of good milk. Bake in a buttered dish for three-quarters of an hour in a quick oven. This pudding is much improved by careful mixing. If the eggs, flour, and milk are not well blended together the pudding is often a failure. Probable cost, 7d. or 8d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain baked batter pudding — essentially a Yorkshire pudding baked in a dish rather than under a joint. The whole thing hinges on the mixing, which is why Cassell's says so twice.
- The hinge: build the batter thick firstWork the beaten eggs into the flour to a stiff, smooth paste before any milk goes in, then thin it in stages. Adding the milk early gives you lumps that no amount of later whisking will disperse, and lumps are the failure the recipe is warning about.
- Imperial pintA British pint is 20 fl oz, so "little more than a pint" is roughly 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 cups of milk. "Good milk" most likely means fresh, unskimmed milk, so use whole milk.
- Flour by weightSix to eight ounces of flour is about 1 1/3 to 1 3/4 cups. Use the lower figure for a lighter, more custardy pudding and the higher for one that holds a slice; plain (all-purpose) flour, no baking powder.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400–425F. The high heat is what helps the batter climb the sides of the dish; a cooler oven tends to give a denser, paler, flatter pudding.
- Preheat the dishThe recipe says buttered, not hot, but the pudding rises far better if the buttered dish goes into the oven until the fat shimmers before the batter is poured in. Use a metal or enamelled dish rather than glass or stoneware for the same reason.
- Rest the batterHalf an hour standing at room temperature lets the flour hydrate and the bubbles from beating settle out.
- TimingThree-quarters of an hour is right for a deep dish holding the full quantity. Do not open the oven for the first 25 minutes; it is done when well risen, dry in the centre and deep brown at the edges.
- ServingSufficient for four or five, as stated. Sweetened with sugar, jam or golden syrup it is a pudding in the dessert sense; sent to table with roast beef and gravy it does the work of a Yorkshire pudding. The batter is the same either way.
Batter puddings belong to a family of English flour-and-egg puddings cooked at the open hearth: the batter was originally set beneath the spit to catch the fat and juices of a roasting joint, which is where Yorkshire pudding comes from. Once kitchen ranges with closed ovens replaced the open hearth in the nineteenth century, the batter migrated into a buttered dish of its own and could be eaten sweet or savoury as the household pleased. The note about careful mixing matters, because blending flour, egg and milk without lumps is a skill that carries straight over into pancakes, popovers and toad-in-the-hole. The costing in pence, 7d. or 8d. for a dish feeding five, was the point of such puddings in a Victorian household: filling, cheap, and made from things always in the larder.